214 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



"bears out, in a measure, what I have advanced in a previous 

 chapter, on the strong scent of the deer), " You may hunt deer 

 successfully in almost any state of wind or weather. I have seen 

 many splendid runs on a bright, still, gaudy day, and as many 

 when the wind has been blowing almost a hurricane, the deer 

 caring nothing about it, or rather enjoying it, and running for 

 miles against it. I have known the old stag-hounds stopped 

 for more than an hour during a thunderstorm ; yet they acknow- 

 ledged the scent when the storm was over (though the rain had 

 been heavy), and, what is more, recovered their deer ; yet such a 

 storm and check would have been fatal to a run with fox-hounds 

 or harriers." 



I have been told by an old man at Dulverton, that he has 

 stood there and heard these old stag-hounds run over Hawkridge, 

 four miles distant. 



" For courage, strength, speed, and tongue, they were un- 

 rivalled. Like the game they pursued, they never appeared to 

 be putting forth all their powers of speed, and yet few horses 

 could live with them in the open. Their rarest quality, perhaps, 

 was their sagacity in hunting in water. Every pebble, every 

 overhanging bush or twig which a deer might have touched, was 

 quested as they passed up or down stream, and the crash with 

 ■which the scent, if detected, was acknowledged and announced 

 made the whole country echo again. Nor must I forget to 

 notice the staunchness with which they pursued their game, 

 even when the scent had been stained, by the deer passing 

 through a herd of his own species, or through fallow deer in a 

 park. Wonderful, indeed, was the unerring instinct they dis- 

 played in carrying on the scent, disregarding the lines which, 

 spreading right and left around the track of the hunted deer, 

 would, it might be supposed, have been fatal to their power of 

 keeping on the foot of their quarry. Like all hounds I have 

 ever seen hunting deer in this country, they ran almost in a 

 line, one after the other, not carrying a head, like fox-hounds, 

 but each hound apparently revelling in the scent, and doiug his 



